


The Heretic

by that_runneth



Category: Tron (Movies), Tron - All Media Types, Tron: Betrayal, Tron: Evolution
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-03 06:01:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24346198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/that_runneth/pseuds/that_runneth
Summary: Clu's coup happens: the ISOs escape and after forty cycles of wandering in the desert they establish Arjia City in the Outlands, while Kevin Flynn takes shelter at his safehouse. After a period of relative peace the ISOs outgrow Arjia and they launch a military campaign against Tron City for the resources. The differences between Tron City, which is ruled by Clu and the Inquisition, the Arjians, who consider themselves the chosen nation and between schismatic ISO tribes, who do not recognize Kevin Flynn as the Creator, lead to centuries of religious warfare on the Grid.
Comments: 17
Kudos: 12





	1. Exodus

I.

The elevator stopped. The habitat was dark and quiet around her. Kevin Flynn was standing on the terrace, watching the black desert and the city beyond that. She walked through the room and crossed the curtain of lights; there she stopped and waited in reverent silence. The Creator was wearing a black cloak and boots, seemingly prepared for their imminent departure.

“Quorra,” he said softly. “I dreamed of Tron. First time in years.”

He took a deep breath.

“Thank you for coming,” he said. The black water of the pond on the terrace reflected the light of the curtain and the familiar shimmer made her feel as if everything was fine, as if this was not the last time she had come here; as is she had not been summoned to take Flynn to his last journey.

She looked at him, surprised by the tenderness in his voice. The day she had dreaded had come and despite of her promise earlier, despite of her pledge to stay relentless to the end, Quorra made a last attempt to change Flynn’s mind.

“You don’t need to go,” she said. “You can stay here… You could live.”

The Creator turned at her. How old he had become during the cycles, she thought. His previous sentiment disappeared and once again he became resolute.

“Quorra,” he said. “There is no choice.”

He turned back at the vista. The desert was empty and the city in the distance appeared to be peaceful; it did not look like a land ravaged by centuries of crusades.

“Chaos,” he said. “Good news.”

II.

The light runner was making its way through the desert in a quick pace. They were heading to the city; a trip so dangerous that they could not even risk it between different circumstances. And even now, even now they were not traveling there in hopes of negotiation talks, though the Creator did intend to achieve ceasefire in a manner likely unexpected for the enemy.

Quorra was focusing on the road. This was the only way for her to control herself, her only hope not to break down, turn the vehicle around and return Flynn to the safehouse. She was one of the first ISOs; she had emerged from the sea and she had seen the golden age of the Grid, when programs and ISOs had lived together peacefully in Tron City. She saw the coup, when Clu betrayed the Creator in an attempt to overtake the system and capture Flynn. She was there when Clu’s troops began slaughtering the ISOs, she marched with the survivors during the exodus, wandering in the desert, searching for a land safe enough to build their city. Quorra remembered, when after forty cycles of marching and camping near small energy sources which could barely sustain their nation, the scouts returned with encouraging news – they had found a valley far in the Outlands with a major energy fountain, where the ISOs could build their own city and they could thrive once more. She saw when the ISO elders and Radia placed the first data cube on the desert floor, establishing Arjia City. The great white city grew out from the black floor as the ISOs had once emerged from the Sea of Simulation, majestic, unexpected. There the ISOs flourished and their numbers multiplied: a function beyond understanding for regular programs and the very reason behind the initial hostilities. The Creator never joined them: he lived alone at various compounds close to Tron City, watching every day what had been lost. Generation after generation grew up in Arjia City, new and new waves of ISOs, who never met their Creator: he had only kept contact with them through messengers and many of the younger ISOs became doubtful of his existence. After a peaceful period, when the ISO culture blossomed, they grew out Arjia City, but failed to locate another place at the Outlands where a new city could have been established. When the energy became scarce, the ISOs grew desperate and new prophets emerged; the prophets preached that they were the Creator’s chosen people and they had the right to reclaim Tron City. In the face of unrest and starvation, the ISO leaders decided to launch a military campaign against Clu’s forces. That siege marked the beginning of the war which was interrupted with periods of ceasefire throughout the cycles, but what otherwise appeared to be endless. The ISOs could not capture Tron City, but the troops always managed to return with enough loot for the Arjians to survive until the next campaign. As the cycles passed the ISOs became more and more gleeful over the fact that while their numbers continuously grew, Basic programs in Tron City could not replenish themselves and so it was only the question of time until the ISOs would outbreed them. Disillusioned with the violence, groups of ISOs left Arjia City: some of them followed various prophets and became nomads that were wandering around the Outlands. Others, with Quorra amongst them, found a small energy source where they built the Bostrum Colony, where they could lead a simple, peaceful life.

The Bostrumites remained neutral, until a group of renegade ISOs attacked them. The aggressors were the descendants of the nomads; young ISOs, who had not known the sea, Tron City or Arjia. They only listened to their prophet, who fed them with the vision of the whole system under their rule – and in that vision all other programs that lived on the Grid, were meant to submit to them or die. The nomads were soon attacking Arjia and Tron City. Facing the new threat, Basics launched counterstrikes against the nomads: the crusades. Desperately, Quorra and her friends searched the Outlands for the Creator and they found him in a safehouse. They pleaded to him for help and reluctantly he agreed. Flynn explained it to Quorra later; after his initial failure and his feeble, botched attempts to regain control he was now afraid of making matters worse with intervening. But after seeing evidence of the devastation the religious warfare resulted in, he joined the Bostrumites: only to find that nobody wanted his advice. The Basics would not let him enter Tron City; Clu was blaming Flynn for the massacre, for not listening to him when he had first warned Flynn about the ISOs. Flynn and the Bostrumites ended up having to flee, when Clu’s troops attempted to capture them. They received no warm reception at Arjia City either; the younger ISOs would not recognize him and the older ones refused to meet him when they realized that Flynn could not deliver Tron City and its resources to them to ensure their supremacy. With no other options left Flynn tried to reach out to the nomads in order to convince them to stop attacking other programs. By then the mad prophet that had led them, died in the desert and another zealot took his place; these wild ISOs had never heard of Kevin Flynn before. They called him a false deity and pledged to kill him for trying to pose as the creator of the system.

Despondently, they returned home. Living cycle to cycle in Bostrum, watching her world falling into chaos, Quorra kept on visiting Flynn at his safehouse. Their unlikely friendship was something she could hold onto during the uncertainty, when one could not know if they would live another day. After first being impatient with Flynn, she came to understand his desire for peace and his hope to see his family again. She would listen to his stories about his home world, where the ISOs were meant to make such a difference… Seeing what the ISOs had become throughout the centuries, Quorra sometimes felt happy for no User ever meeting them, for Users not finding out what deviations her people had turned out to be after centuries of hostilities.

The end came when spies returned to Arjia City with alarming news: the nomadic ISO sects in the desert united into one tribe with the sole purpose of conquering the system. Their technology was inferior to the Arjians’ and to the crusaders’, but their viciousness was unmatched. Quorra told this to Flynn during their next meeting. At that time Flynn did not respond to the news, but he told Quorra about his decision when they saw each other the next time.

III.

“What does it mean?” she asked. She did not like the sound of the word and the fact that she was hearing about this option for the first time now, after a thousand cycles of suffering, told her that it meant something final, something irreversible. “Reintegration?”

“It’s a solution,” Kevin Flynn replied. The way he was talking, the resignation in his voice made Quorra realize that he was talking about a suicide mission even before he finished the actual explanation. “To reverse Clu’s creation.”

“To reintegrate him with what?” Quorra asked. The Creator was silent, so she figured. “With yourself? If there is such solution, why didn’t you do it cycles ago?”

“Because it will likely kill of both of us,” Flynn replied somberly. Quorra shook her head.

“I don’t understand,” she said. “Why? What’s the point? At this point Clu is not the main threat to the system. Even if your plan succeeds, even if you manage to take him down, you will also be gone and the city will fall into chaos. My people and the tribes will still be there and when they find out that Clu is dead, they will stop at nothing. They will attack Tron City, massacre everybody there and then each other for the resources. So... why?”

“Because this is the only way to send a message to the User world,” Flynn replied. Seeing Quorra’s confused expression he continued. “I have no way of contacting other Users as long as I am in the system. The lack of security measures is something I did regret a thousand times throughout the cycles, but there was nothing I could do about it once the Portal closed. Out there nobody knows where the computer server which hosts the Grid is located. I never expected to be trapped here, though I did consider the chance of being killed in an accident while in the system. And for that, should the situation ever arise, I did build a backup. Should I be killed here, the computer would send out a page to Alan Bradley.”

Quorra was staring at him intently, stunned by the revelations. She had heard the other programmer’s name before: Tron’s User. Flynn had spoken about his regret of not getting him involved in his plans and operations many times throughout the centuries.

“Should he be still alive in the User world, should he still have the pager, he will get the message,” Flynn said. “He will come. He will find the computer and he will make things right.”

“How is he going to make things right?” she exclaimed. “You’ll be dead!”

“Yes. I have spent a thousand cycles trying to survive, sacrificing anything and anybody to achieve this goal. But the way things are now, it appears that we will all die soon without intervention. If nobody discovered the system in the real world until now, it is unlikely that they do so during that short time that we have left until the siege.”

“Maybe the city will stand,” Quorra argued. “Maybe Clu and the crusaders can hold the walls.”

“Maybe. Nevertheless, if I sit here and wait, I’ll die anyway. Maybe the city falls, the nomadic ISOs kill all the programs I created and then they access the resources of the system. They will be so powerful that the rest of the ISOs will have no chance against them and nor will I when they eventually find this place. Maybe Clu and his forces can defend the city during my natural lifetime and I die in exile. In both scenarios I might outlive if I haven’t already the only person that can save us and in that case the computer which keeps us all alive, will crash at one point and the Grid disappears without a trace, along with all its promises and gifts it could have given to the world. If it happens either way and Alan Bradley still gets to find the system, he will discover what went down… he will discover that I did nothing. He will know that I was hiding until the very end, hoping for a rescue that never came.”

He made an indignant gesture. Quorra was listening carefully.

“Or I try my luck against Clu. I get close to him and try to convince him one last time.”

“He will not listen to you.”

“Perhaps not. So I initiate the reintegration process. I don’t know what will happen, but it is unlikely for any of us to survive.”

“Why are you taking him out? He is not the greatest threat in this moment.”

“He is the only one I have some power over. If I could convince the tribes to live in peace, I would do it, believe me. I understand that they are our most urgent trouble, but I’m unable to stop them. This way I can neutralize Clu, because while he is not the most dangerous program on the Grid for the time being, he is still one of them.”

“You are taking too many chances,” Quorra said. “You and Clu can both die during the reintegration. What if the message does not go out or it does not get delivered? With Clu gone, the crusaders will lose the city and all Basics die.”

“Right,” Flynn replied. His eyes became distant; Quorra had seen his expression changing sometimes when his mind wandered back to the great days of the Grid. He was certain that Alan Bradley would come, Quorra realized. Kevin Flynn knew that had the page been sent and the other programmer in his own world would be still around to receive it, the help would come. He had always known it; he had just never considered actually killing himself to summon the help and making such rescue mission pointless with the same action. And now Quorra understood that Flynn had made up his mind and would attempt the reintegration because of himself. The fate of the Grid and its millions of inhabitants might have mattered too, but it was all about him, how he saw himself and his fear of being revealed as a coward, had he stayed in hiding, had he been eventually located by the wild ISOs – had he been dragged out from his safehouse and slaughtered in the most pathetic manner. Flynn’s days in hiding were numbered and now, that the only choice for him was how to die, he chose reintegration, a process that could have meant the instant destruction of the Grid as far as anybody knew; and he still picked that option.

“So be it,” she replied. She was not oblivious of the arrogance behind that decision, but then; he was the Creator. Shortly after that conversation Quorra traveled to Arjia City and requested an audience with the ISO elders. This was the first occasion she returned to the white city since the Bostrumites had come with Kevin Flynn and she saw the hostility on a few faces now. Quorra would not have revealed Flynn’s plans to the ISOs between less dire circumstances, but this time she was hoping for an advice, for the ISOs to suggest a better plan rather than letting the Creator possibly be killed.

Much to her surprise there were no cries of anguish after she spoke. The elders were sitting on their thrones in a circle in the room; they were nodding and quietly talking between each other. Quorra, standing in the middle of the circle, was waiting patiently. She looked at the symbols painted on the walls; the memory of the sea lost. Always the sea; the ISOs accepted Kevin Flynn as the creator of the universe, but they believed that he fulfilled his role with calling the Grid into existence. They certainly did not consider him as deity, all-knowing and omnipotent as most of the Basics had once believed. At the end Radia stood up.

“He asked you to take him to Clu,” she told Quorra. “So do as he said.”

“The Creator can die, should they meet,” Quorra replied after a moment of shocked silence. “Despite of his own expectations, his passing might not alert other Users. If that happens and Clu dies too, Tron City will be left without a leader and with no means to end the war.”

“Exactly,” Radia replied. She stood there in her white gown like a statue. She offered no further remark and Quorra understood that the audience ended. The ISOs’ interest was their own survival and everything else was secondary; they had no use of Flynn anymore and as they viewed it, they could only profit from his death. He could take Clu down and leave Tron City available to conquer for the Arjians, who would acquire the city’s resources and defeat the tribes; and in the meantime another User would arrive. Based on their experience with Flynn the ISOs took it granted that the new User would prefer them over other programs. Or the Creator could survive and that way there could be a chance of peace between the two cities - and an opportunity to join forces with the Basics to defeat the tribes and deflect the primary threat. The ISOs believed that they could only benefit from the reintegration and they were not going to prevent it from happening.

Quorra nodded and she left. She was an ISOs and she understood the silent decision without explanation. When the call came she took off for Flynn’s safehouse, ready to take the Creator to his last journey.

IV.

They spotted the first Recognizer far away from the city limits. In these times of hostilities the crusaders ventured far into the desert to catch sight of a possible invading army at the earliest possible and this Recognizer must have been a scout. Quorra slowed down the vehicle instinctively. The Recognizer could simply take the light runner out with a blast; and so she avoided appearing as a threat or trying to escape. Her trip ended here.

The vehicle stopped. They were in a middle of a dark valley: a perfect place for Flynn and Clu to meet. The Recognizer began circling above the stopped vehicle with its searchlights pointed at the light runner. Quorra turned at Flynn. He was calm and composed. Quorra found herself at a loss for words. She knew that the valley would soon be swarming with Clu’s troops, but she was unable to move.

The Creator turned at her. There was a light, almost careless smile on his face. He leaned across the middle console of the vehicle and kissed her on the forehead.

“Goodbye, kiddo,” he said. Quorra replied with a tearful nod and she exited the vehicle. She began running uphill with the Recognizer lighting up her way. She was scared that the crusaders would shoot her down; by now they must have realized that she was an ISO and that she was trying to escape. Then the searchlight suddenly disappeared and Quorra turned back. In the valley Kevin Flynn exited the vehicle and he was looking up at the Recognizer to reveal his identity and bring their attention to himself instead of Quorra. The Recognizer turned around immediately and it began to hover over the light runner. Quorra was making her way to safety and she only looked back when she was on the top of the nearby hill, hidden behind a rock formation.

Flynn went back to the vehicle and he sat in. The Recognizer kept on hovering above and soon there would be dozens of more coming, crossing though the black sky. The aircrafts were flying around for a while and then they landed in a circle around the light runner to cut off possible escape routes. The red programs exited and they began to approach the land vehicle. From the distance Quorra recognized Clu’s distinctive golden circuitry amongst the crusaders.

The Creator got out from the vehicle for one last time. The crusaders surrounded him, but nobody tried to approach. To this point events were unfolding the way Flynn had expected; he managed to stage this confrontation in a remote area and Clu had come in person. Quorra saw that Flynn was watching the crusaders and instinctively she knew that he was looking to see if Tron was amongst them. Flynn’s small shrug told Quorra that the security program was not there with the other crusaders, though she did not know whether Flynn made that gesture out of disappointment that he could not see Tron for one last time in his life or because he was relieved that the program was not there and such as he would not perish from the fallout after the reintegration.

Clu stepped ahead and he proceeded toward Flynn cautiously. He was wearing his regular attire, a black Grid suit, illuminated by golden circuits. He was walking slowly; he knew that this was a trap and yet he had come, not being able to resist the opportunity to capture Flynn.

“The cycles have not been kind, have they?” Clu exclaimed. Just now Quorra realized how angry he was and it took her a moment to figure that he was talking about Flynn, about how old he had gotten in the exile. She was far away from them, shielded from the possible explosion, but the difference between the two figures down in the valley was striking: the difference… and similarity between the youthful and elderly shape of Kevin Flynn that were facing each other for one last time.

“Ah!” Flynn responded. “You don’t look so bad.”

He took one step toward Clu and he extended his arms.

“There is a threat…” he started, but Clu interrupted.

“I know about the army coming,” he said. “Your ISOs. I warned you about them!”

“I know,” Flynn replied.

“I did everything!” Clu yelled. “Everything you ever asked.”

“I know you did.”

“I have held my faith in you and tried to do what you intended. You designed me to be you, here. You made me to keep order, then you told me to let the natural order be spontaneous.”

Flynn did not respond to that; Quorra knew their old argument and that the Creator had admitted long before that Clu had been right about the uncertainty that the ISOs had brought to the Grid and that he had regretted creating Clu without the option to change his directives as circumstances changed.

“You must listen to me,” Flynn said.

“You have not listened to me.”

“No, I failed you. Don’t make the same mistake. Please.”

Flynn extended his arms once more. Clu stood there, staring at him as if he would be considering giving in, as if he wanted to accept the apology. Then he shook his head and he turned away.

“We will win this war,” he said. “Despite of your treachery, we will emerge as victors and you will help us.”

“You must end the war,” Flynn said. “You have to make peace with the ISOs or they will destroy the city.”

Clu snarled.

“You made it possible for them,” he said. “I will end the war and when it ends, there will be no ISO left in the system.”

“You are not powerful enough and they outnumber you,” Flynn said. Clu looked at him and he made a gesture at his soldiers. He was summoning them to capture the Creator, Quorra realized and she pressed her hand against her lips. Flynn reached down and touched the desert floor. There was an outburst of energy so powerful that Quorra could feel it resonating through the texture of the Grid. From Clu’s expression she could tell that he realized what was happening and he tried to move, but he and the crusaders seemed to be frozen. A circle of bright, white light appeared around Flynn; the circle was growing and it began consuming everything around him. The energy destroyed everything within the circle; the crusaders fell to pixels and the closest Recognizer exploded. Flynn and Clu, who were both in the epicenter, were still alive. The Creator straightened himself and he looked at Clu, reaching out at him with both arms as if he was inviting him for an embrace once more. Clu was disintegrating; if he was in pain, his face did not reveal it, but he was clearly struggling against the invisible force which was drawing his pixelating shape toward Flynn. Both of their forms were glowing with an intensity that Quorra could not watch anymore; she hid behind the rocks just in time to shelter herself from the explosion that shook the valley and destroyed everything in the vicinity.

V.

Quorra was climbing downhill. She moved slowly, deliberately; it was completely dark in the desert. All the Recognizers that were caught in the shockwave of the explosion were destroyed and there was nothing left intact in the valley. Quorra was proceeding slowly not out of fear of any crusaders left alive, but because she tried to delay the moment when she would discover Flynn’s body, had anything been left behind after the inferno.

She got there where the light runner had been parked not long before. There was a crater now, surrounded by the pixelated remains of programs. Quorra could not see anything that she could identify and she stood there in the eerie silence. Before she could have given in to grief, she heard a noise and she turned around. The noise came from the shallow crater and first Quorra thought it was the sound of the shifting rocks. She walked closer nevertheless and looked down. There was something… somebody in the hole. It was dark and Quorra could not see his face, but she recognized the familiar form and moves.

“Flynn!” she exclaimed. She went down on her knees and reached down in an attempt to help him out from the crater. He grabbed her hand and Quorra pulled him up. As he emerged from the hole, Quorra finally saw his face in the scarce light of the desert.

She screamed.

VI.

Alan Bradley woke up in darkness. He was alone and the house was quiet; he could not tell what woke him up. He looked at the clock; the first lights of the dawn were still hours away. He turned on the light and went to the kitchen for a glass of water. He walked around the house, but he did not see anything unusual. The street was dark outside and the lawn was undisturbed. He went back to the bedroom.

He saw the light on the pager blinking when he sat down on the bed. He reached out and picked up the device. It happened sometimes; people would misdial and send a page to him inadvertently. He could almost always tell that it was a wrong call, other times he would simply call the number and verify. It was not about hope; after twenty years he had no hopes left for Kevin Flynn to return, but he, Alan had made a promise to keep the pager and he was not the one to break promises, even if the words once said made no difference anymore. He put on his reading glasses and looked at the small, grey screen. It must have been a misdial again; it was the middle of the night and it was a local number. He dialed the number from his cell phone and a machine answered, announcing that the number he called had been disconnected. Alan hung up; he could have left it like that, but now he was awake anyway. He opened the browser on his cell phone and searched for the caller number. The first result of the search was an old advertisement for a closed game room.

_Flynn’s Arcade._


	2. John 8:32

I.

The cell phone that he had placed on the side of the desk, rang. Alan Bradley blinked; the sound awakened him from his silent contemplation at once. He reached there and picked up the phone. It was his wife calling.

“Hey,” Lora said. “I just got your message.”

“Hey,” Alan replied. He had to hold the phone apart from his face for a moment. He felt his throat tickle from the dry air of the server room. The office under Flynn’s Arcade felt like he was in an underground tomb; just as the idea occurred to him, Alan realized how true the comparison was. “Thank you for calling me back.”

“Is everything all right there?”

“Yes. I was wondering if the plans are still the same and you are coming home tomorrow,” he said.

“Everything is the same. I’ll have one meeting in the morning and then I’ll be on my way to the airport.”

“I’ll be there to pick you up.”

“Thank you. Are you sure everything is okay? You sound strange,” Lora said.

“We are good. There is something I want to show you once you are back, but it can wait until tomorrow.”

“Now you made me curious. Should I be worried?”

“It’s about Kevin Flynn,” he said. She was silent for a moment.

“I see,” she said at the end. Alan sat back in the chair when they hung up. He was in Flynn’s secret office under the Arcade. During his workday at ENCOM he could not stop thinking about the page he had received the night before. He already had the keys of the shuttered Arcade with him; from work he drove straight to Flynn’s old place. The street was empty when he arrived; Alan locked his car and walked to the closed door.

It was quiet inside. Alan looked at the custom-made floor mat at the entrance. _Flynn’s_. The main room was fairly lit by the pale sunlight coming through the windows. He could see the arcade games all around the place: the units were covered with plastic. Alan went to the control panel and much to his surprise he discovered that the power had not been disconnected in the building. The bills must have been paid through the estate, he was thinking. He walked to the other side of the entrance, where there were two payphones on the wall. He picked up the receiver; there was no dial tone on either device. And even if there was, he realized, the page had been sent from the office phone.

Alan went upstairs to the manager’s office. He remembered coming here for the first time, some thirty years before. He was with Lora and it was in the evening. They came upon Lora’s insistence to warn Flynn that Edward Dillinger was aware of his hacking attempts against ENCOM. At that time Flynn used his place as an apartment as well; there was the bed, a desk with a chair on the left and a modular sofa on the right. The clothes drawer was right next to the door and the small kitchen was located behind the office. The office was on an upper level galleria above the main room; through the wall to wall windows one could oversee the operation – or close the shades to grant privacy if needed. Alan had not been impressed when he had first come here nevertheless.

“The best programmer ENCOM ever had,” he exclaimed when he walked in, as if Flynn was not in hearing range. “And he ends up playing Space Cowboys in some back room.”

“Okay, let me handle this,” Lora told him.

“Go right ahead,” Flynn said, pulling his shirt off without regard of his guests. Lora looked at him.

“Have you been sneaking into the ENCOM system?” she asked. Flynn stopped; Alan could tell that he was not sure if Lora and Alan came as friends or if he had to be careful with what he was saying.

“You were never much for small talk, were you?” Flynn mumbled. He took out a clean t-shirt from the drawer and he looked at Alan. “She still leave her clothes all over the floor?”

“No,” Alan said. Of course Flynn played him; he wanted to win a few seconds for himself to think of his own reply, so he hit Alan with the unexpected question.

“Alan!” Lora exclaimed.

“I mean, not that often…” Alan said, but Lora was on her feet already. She pushed Alan backwards and he sat down onto the sofa.

“Now you can see why all his friends are fourteen years old,” she said, gesturing at Flynn. She sat down on the coffee table, across Alan.

“Touché, honey,” Flynn said, finally putting on the shirt.

The furniture was still the same, but now everything was covered with plastic. Alan looked around and he could not see any phones. He went downstairs and then out the door. He did not lock the door; something was still bothering him. He sat in his car and pulled out his cell phone. He dialed the law office that handled Flynn’s estate and represented his family. He was transferred two times; he ended up talking to accounting. The accountant asked him to wait a few minutes and they hung up. Alan was sitting in his vehicle quietly, looking at the abandoned Arcade. It was not the building itself that made him strangely emotional, he was thinking, but the nostalgia and the sensation of loss. Maybe not even the loss of Flynn – sure, they had become friends later, but Alan always knew that from Flynn’s perspective their friendship was rather out of convenience -, but what really made his heart ache now was to be reminded of the loss of youth. They were not going to go for another adventure; they were not going to trust or love like they had used to, years before, trust wholeheartedly even in the face of the coming betrayal nor to love without leaving something to fall back, with no escape routes left open.

The phone beeped. Alan looked at the files the accountant transferred to him. Those were the monthly bills of the Arcade: water and power, the occasional handyman, for when time to time the exterior was vandalized. Alan focused on the power bill. The usage was very high for an abandoned place. Even if the arcade games and the music box were connected and still used some electricity, even if the handyman sometimes plugged in a drill… the usage was steady, even and high. There must have been some equipment inside which was consuming power in an even rate for many years now.

Alan got out from the car. He went back to the Arcade; this time he closed the door from the inside and he walked around on the premises. The machines were dark and the natural light was fading. He was going to have to come back another time, Alan was thinking, or rather, he would have to call the handyman, who could have a better idea of what equipment could be operating here.

He looked aside. At the end of the dark isle of machines, there was a TRON arcade game. Alan walked there. This machine was the result of his only collaboration with the games department of ENCOM. Alan’s participation was really just the name: Flynn had asked him if they could use the name of the computer security program Alan had written for ENCOM and Alan had agreed without giving much thought to it. For whatever reason the creation of this game seemed to be important for Flynn; he had come up with the design and the idea of the light cycle chase too.

There was a now dark neon sign on the wall above the machine, reading ‘TRON’. Alan remembered seeing that sign in Flynn’s office before they had apparently installed it in the Arcade. He reached out and touched the machine through the plastic. They had searched the Arcade before and found nothing, he was thinking. Even if he found the device which was running, even when he would confirm that the office phone sent the page out of some sort of malfunction, none of that would change anything. He turned around to leave.

Alan stopped. He saw something from the corner of his eye and he turned back. There was something on the floor just before the arcade game; but when he leaned closer he saw nothing. He reached there and touched the stone floor. There were small scratches on the stone; the glint that caught his attention must have been the reflection of natural light on the polished edges of the scrapes. Those were circular lines, clearly the result of the gaming machine being moved on a regular basis.

He straightened himself. The machine appeared to be heavy; he tried to move it regardless. The machine slid aside on the metal frame it held it in place from the back. There was a closed door behind on the wall. Alan stood there for a moment, frozen, and then he opened the door.

II.

He picked up Lora at the curb of the arrival terminal. She was wearing a jacket with a skirt and flat shoes. She carried her small luggage; Lora had her own apartment in Washington D.C. and that allowed her to travel light. She smiled when she walked out from the building and they embraced before Alan put her bag in the trunk, but he noticed her intent look immediately.

“What happened?” she asked when they were leaving the airport. Alan told her about the page he received and about his visit and findings and the Arcade. Lora’s face darkened gradually as he spoke.

“An office?” she asked.

“More like an underground workshop. There is the digitizing laser you and Walter built. A computer… It is huge. It has been running for twenty years, uninterrupted. He must have used some sort of data compression program, because the amount of information on the server is overwhelming.”

“He used the laser on himself, didn’t he?” Lora asked. Alan looked at her.

“How did you know?”

“Back in 1989, after his disappearance, I noticed that the laser was missing. It was not on the ENCOM inventory list and there was no paper trail of the machine being decommissioned at any point.”

“You never mentioned it.”

“I long left ENCOM at that time and I merely looked for the laser out of curiosity. That project was very important for me at one point and I was interested to see if he ever made any good use of it. I found it curious that the laser was gone, but I didn’t make any assumptions. The laser was not designed to digitize a living person and it was not tested in such manner. Flynn was reckless, but he was not insane and one had to be mad to use the laser on himself. Now, that you mentioned the laser, I figured that he did just that.”

“Yes… He had this… alternate reality inside the computer. Some sort of simulation, I suppose. I can’t even begin to describe it; the amount of information is overwhelming. It appears that things spiraled out of his control. There are millions of programs running on the computer and most, if not all of them seems to have self-modifying codes. A lot of them might have been created by the system itself and they behave like intelligent agents. At one point the whole mess began to display something that I can only describe as religious systems inside the system.”

He sighed. They were approaching the Arcade.

“How much you saw?” she asked.

“Not all that much. I was there only for a couple of hours and as I told you, the system history is massive. Not just that twenty years have passed, but the computer appears to have a different timekeeping, resulting in a database that covers a period of time about a thousand years.”

“Oh, God,” Lora said. Alan stopped the car in front of Flynn’s Arcade.

“Babe,” she said. “If that’s what happened… if Flynn used the laser and that’s where he disappeared in 1989, then he is dead, regardless of what went down in that computer. One of the most crucial aspects of the laser technology is to sustain the digitized body. We experimented on fruits and they seemed to be intact afterwards, but we did not even get to animal experiments before the project was shut down. Flynn might have survived the short trips he did, but if he is stuck there in the last twenty years that means that his physical body is stored in the machine ever since. There is no way that it could be retrieved alive.”

“Lora,” Alan replied, turning at her. “He _is_ dead. The first thing you can see on the screen is his last will and testament. The system was set up in a way to send out the page to my phone in case he died while in the computer. He passed away two days ago, that’s why I got the message.”

They sat in the vehicle, turned at each other in silence. They had both known that this day would come and that when it came it was going to be a relief of knowing. But now they were both hurting. Then the moment passed.

“But?” Lora asked. “You didn’t need me to come. You could have just pulled the plug yesterday.”

“Yes. There is more and that’s why I asked you to come. I looked into the system files to see how he died: I had to know. There was an event recorded in the computer history as ‘reintegration’. According to the computer he died during this process, but something lived. Flynn went in, something else came out and it is impossible to tell the difference from this side of the screen. I did not pull the plug, because I could not confirm that he was indeed dead.”

“So that’s what we are trying to do here?” she asked. “To figure if he is gone or not?”

“Yes. And if we confirm that he is gone, we pull the plug. And his family can get closure.”

“And if he is alive?” Lora asked. Alan sighed.

“Then we find a way to communicate with him. And if it’s him, we bring him home,” he said. Lora slowly nodded. They got out from the car and walked to the entrance together.

III.

They worked in the underground office for long. After their arrival Lora was shocked to see the secret stairway and the downstairs computer laboratory; she was looking around with resentful expression on her face. Then they began working and when they next spoke it was eight o’clock in the evening. They agreed to continue; Alan ordered food and a few bottles of water and he went upstairs to meet the delivery driver.

They ate in silence in the office, surrounded by the machines and they resumed the work right after. They were running test, examining records, the state of the laser and the overall condition of the equipment. It was almost midnight when they stopped to come to a conclusion.

“What do you think?” Alan asked. Lora took a sip from the water bottle. She must have been up for almost twenty-four hours by then, but she had not uttered a complaint.

“He is in there. He used the laser to get inside in 1989 and he never came back. You found him,” she replied in a noncommittal way. That did not mislead Alan.

“Are you mad at him?” he asked. “For using your laser?”

“The laser belongs to ENCOM. It’s his. That being said, yes, I am outraged. He knew that the Shiva laser was not built to digitize people and now I’m actually surprised that he made it until 1989 without an incident. Had he told me any of this, I could have helped to develop a safe way.”

Alan nodded. He remembered his conversation with Lora and Walter Gibbs in the laser bay many years before.

“You two having fun disintegrating things down here?” Alan asked them.

“Not disintegrating, Alan,” Gibbs replied. “Digitizing. A laser dismantles the molecular structure of the object and molecules remain suspended in the laser beam. Then, when the computer plays out the model, the molecules fall back into place and voilà.”

“Great,” Alan replied. “Can it send me to Hawaii?”

“Yep, but you gotta purchase your program thirty days in advance,” Lora replied then. Now, almost thirty years later, sitting next to her laser, Lora shook her head.

“Anyway,” she said. “I can’t think of a way of communicating with him or any other entities for the matter of fact. What is your opinion?”

“I agree. The system is profoundly different from every other computer I have ever worked on. I see how he imported new programs; how he built this world. Technically I could add or delete as well, but to communicate… He seems to have relied heavily on the laser, to interact in person, whatever that actually means in this situation. I can’t run tests and queries; the system must have been designed differently. And even if we could, even if we could make a contact with the entity we believe is him…”

“How will we know that he is telling the truth?” Lora finished his sentence. “Those are self-writing programs in there and the idea of making it out to the real world appears to be an ongoing theme in the system. Even if we make contact, even if we question him… We will not be able to tell if it is indeed Kevin Flynn and if programs in this system are as intelligent as they appear to be, this entity can try to mislead us in order to make it out to this side of the laser when we try to save Flynn.”

“Is it possible? Can we extract him, should he be still alive?” Alan asked. Lora was thinking for a minute before answering.

“I will say yes,” she said slowly. “The way the laser had been designed… it’s similar to the idea of quantum teleportation; the object is in suspended space when it is being digitized. Flynn made changes to that and he assigned specific entry and exit points from the system. If I can reconfigure that, we will be able to get him out regardless of his actual location.”

She looked at Alan; her lips moved, but she remained silent. Alan understood her anyway.

“We can not attempt to bring him home without confirming that it’s him,” he said. Lora nodded.

“Do you think he is alive?” she asked. “Despite of what the computer says.”

“He could be. That reintegration could stand for anything; the computer is just a machine at the end of the day and it can consider Flynn dead, had a single digit changed in the code that represent him inside the system.”

“Exactly,” Lora said. “How can we confirm?”

“I can install a new program. I can rewrite an existing app or come up with something new, specifically for this purpose.”

“That’s a long shot. This computer is filled with self-writing agents. Even if your program is compatible with them, an AI can recognize it and subsequently trick it. Whatever answers a program would come back, it will not be enough for us to initiate a laser transmission.”

They were thinking.

“I can go in,” Alan said at the end. “They won’t be able to trick me. I go in, I talk to him, I get out. If it’s Flynn, we bring him home. If he is dead, we pull the plug.”

Lora was looking at him in a manner that Alan could not tell whether she was amused or quite the contrary.

“Do you expect me to assist you with the same untested laser transmission that got Flynn trapped in a computer and likely got him killed?” she asked.

“None of those can happen to me, because you will be here, on the other side of the computer,” Alan replied. They were sitting in silence for a few minutes again.

“What if we call it a day for now?” Lora asked. “We are both exhausted. Let’s go home, we talk about this tomorrow. We might come up with a new idea.”

“I agree,” he said and they stood up. Just now Alan felt how tired he was. Lora looked at the bookshelf, where volumes about computer science, architecture and religion stood. She pointed at the books.

“He was trying to figure things out prior to his disappearance,” Lora said. She reached there and took a large book from the shelf. Alan joined her and he looked at the cover to read the title. He saw an empty white sheet instead: there were paper sheets between the books and these ones came out when Lora took the book from the shelf. Lora turned the paper and Alan saw that it was a small stack of white sheets with pencil sketches. Lora moved the book and the sketches closer to the light and that was when he finally saw what was on the drawings. It was him; a young Alan Bradley in some futuristic looking dark suit. On one sketch he was standing there with a disk in his hand – another one was a close-up. The drawings reminded Alan of the work of ENCOM’s art department, the digital paintings of videogame warriors with their frisbee weapons. Contrary to those pieces, these sketches felt realistic, as if Flynn had been drawing a real person. And for sure, the man on the sketches looked like Alan; but he instinctively knew that it was not him on the pictures.

Lora turned the sheets without offering a single loud comment. She put the book and the last pencil sketch on the worktable. The book was about the Crusades and on the cover, under the name of the author and the title there was a colorful copy of some old painting, a battle scene between Crusaders and Saracens. On the last sketch there was a young Alan Bradley again, but this time Flynn had drawn him in the knight’s clothing from the painting, in a metal armor and in a white cloak over it, with a large, red cross on the chest. On the picture the figure was holding a sword instead of the customary disk. Lora pointed at the corner of the sheet, where Flynn had put a date. He had made this sketch just a month before his disappearance in 1989.

Lora and Alan looked at each other. Alan felt at loss of words and Lora remained quiet as well. She left the book and the sheets on the table; they turned off the lights, closed the doors and they went home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> John 8:32:   
> "And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”


	3. Inquisition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Every revolutionary ends by becoming either an oppressor or a heretic.”
> 
> Albert Camus

1989

The great dome was filled with programs and the sound of their chatter. The speaker’s pulpit in the middle was empty for now; around it the seats were placed in concentric circles. Closest to the pulpit there were the boxes of dignitaries; high-ranked officials, generals and ISO elders. Behind them seated there were the tower guardians, bishops and preachers. The rest of the space was full of programs from all walks of the Grid and it seemed that all those present were talking at the same time. Some of the attendees were engaged in heavy arguments with the occupants of other boxes, others were talking to their peers, while a few stood up and began preaching loudly. Only the ISOs sat in silence in their long, white robes, staring ahead with empty faces.

Clu was standing close to the pulpit, waiting for the usher to call for the first speaker. This was the second council; the first council a few cycles before had been summoned after the tension within the city had risen to the extent that the followers of various sects had gotten into fights on the streets. The first council ended with granting the same rights to all groups and to programs that wished not to join any of those. That decision was in accordance of the wishes of Kevin Flynn and Clu remembered his conversation with the User after the closing ceremony of the council.

“You guys are taking these matters too seriously,” Kevin Flynn said, examining a plan in the main office of the administration tower. “Religion should not be an issue here; programs should not fight over their differing opinions about their beliefs.”

“Users do the same too,” Clu replied. He knew that he was telling the truth; he shared Flynn’s memories from before his own creation. “They kill each other and drive others out from their lands for similar reasons.”

Flynn sighed.

“You can’t compare Users to programs,” he replied. “In the outside world… Users have no proof of God. I am no God, but I created this system and its inhabitants. Programs know their origins, so that they should not make up different theories about it.”

“Everybody knows and respects the fact that you made this place,” Clu replied. “Except for the ISOs.”

Flynn glanced up at him.

“They emerged on their own,” he replied. “It doesn’t make a difference. Everybody have the right to live on the Grid.”

“As long as they don’t endanger others’ lives,” Clu said. “The ISOs put all of us in danger with their mere existence.”

“It’s more of an evolution than a threat to the system,” Flynn said. “But there is a significant rewriting going on here. These are technical issues, not theological, not something to argue, much less to fight about.”

“There were other arguments presented at the council as well, such as…”

“Oh, come on,” Flynn sighed. “Once again, programs should not be concerned about these matters. Religion is a thing for Users, because we have a soul. Programs don’t…”

He fell silent suddenly. Clu was smiling at him coldly, for he understood what Flynn meant to say. He let the User divert the conversation nevertheless. Now, many cycles later they were at the second council that had been summoned after various shrines had been vandalized around the city and ISOs declared independence from the rest of the system. Flynn, who spent little time on the Grid these days, voiced his displeasure over the council, but he did not find it important enough to attend.

“They have the right to be independent,” he told Clu when they last spoke before the event.

“Indepence?” Clu asked. “They use our shared resources. They take away room and energy, but the system does not benefit from their existence, nor do they take responsibility for the incidents caused by compatibility issues.”

Flynn did not respond, so Clu continued.

“Would you allow regular programs to declare independence the same way you allow that for ISOs?” he asked.

“Of course not,” Flynn replied incredulously and he cut off the conversation.

Now, in his absence, programs assembled to come to consensus. Their purpose was to determine whether the ISOs were going to be part of their further proceedings, to establish a church-court and to settle disagreements over the nature of Users. The second speaker of the council was Radia, who spoke briefly and asked for the ISOs to be excluded from the council and for the members of the ISO nation to be exempt from the rulings of the new church-court. There was a loud, wide-spread applause in the room when she finished: both the friends and enemies of the ISOs agreed about her requests, for all their different reasons.

The debate began and Clu was watching the crowd. Behind the seats of the council members there were the tall walls of the building reaching to the top. On the dark gallery he saw guards standing and walking; their distinctive white and blue circuit lights were easy spot up there. They had no reason to expect an incident during the council and the presence of the security programs was standard procedure. There was one more program up there in the shadow, whom Clu could not see clearly and whom he did not recognize.

After relatively short debate the council members prepared to vote. Their vast majority voted in favor of the exclusion of ISOs; the whole ISO delegation rose from their seats when the result was announced. They left the dome without looking at anybody; first the Basics were watching them in silence, then the booing started in the back. Clu looked up at the gallery and he saw the stranger stepping ahead, out from the shadow. The program put his hand on the railing and he looked down at the council. It was Tron; Clu could not recognize him earlier, because the security program was wearing a black cape over his suit. Tron stayed there until the ISOs left the building, with his eyes on the crowd; he did not notice that Clu was watching him from his box. When the gate closed behind the delegation and the booing stopped, Tron let the handrail go and disappeared from the gallery.

The system administrator looked at the council. The speaker was introducing the second part of their agenda, the proposed church-court. The court was intended to be an office separate from the existing authorities, with the sole purpose of investigating and sanctioning religious matters. The negotiations related to this issue took considerably longer time than their first topic; it took several recesses for the council to establish the new office and decide about the extent of power it would have. It was expected for the church-court to be granted great power and Clu was present during the whole council to ensure that the new office would not have the capacity to overrule his decisions. When the council came to an agreement on every detail about the church-court and they announced the name of the new office, deep silence descended on the dome, as if the participating dignitaries suddenly realized the extent of the consequences.

“Inquisition.”

II.

The shore of the sea was dark; there were no buildings around here, no watchtowers or other establishments. Other times a pair of ISO guards would be passing by with torchlight to see if new ISOs had emerged from the sea; had they located a new program, they would escort them to the city, where a celebration would take place.

There was a commotion on the shore now, but for different reasons. Kevin Flynn was working there with other programs to examine the sea, to determine the extent of damage the viral infection caused.

“What have you done?” Tron asked. He stood next to Clu; they were farther away from the rest, where they could not hear their conversation. The source of the viral attack was unknown, but Clu had no reason anymore to conceal anything.

“I have acted out of _love_ ,” he replied. Tron went tense, but the security program did not look at him. “I have acted because I care. I have been tasked with protecting all citizens of the Grid, even the ISOs. I am protecting us, and them, from themselves. I will protect them, but I won’t let them tear the Grid apart.”

“You haven’t saved anyone,” Tron said. “You’ve just created your own villains. This isn’t a victory.”

“You sound like one of them,” Clu said. “Is that what you want to be said about you when you’re gone?”

“Are you threatening me?” Tron asked. He did not appear to feel threatened; he was standing there in a casual stance without reaching for his disc. He would not even look at Clu; he was watching Flynn and his surroundings, ensuring the User’s safety. This reminded Clu of his appearance during the council: that Tron had left after they had made the decision in favor of the ISOs and he had never returned to see the establishment of the Inquisition. He was not there when the council accepted the principle that Users were omnipotent and infallible inside and outside the system; he did not even realize that had the User fallen, he would be persecuted by the Inquisition along with other User-believers.

On the shore the User cried out in frustration and they walked closer.

“It’s an isomorphic virus,” Flynn said. He looked around; there were ISOs coming from the direction of the city. “Look. It’s them. They can feel it.”

“Their guards alerted them,” Clu said noncommittally. Flynn looked at him.

“I thought I made you better than this,” he said. Clu made a step closer to him; there was something in his stance that prompted Tron to follow and place himself between the User and the system administrator.

“You think this is easy?” Clu asked. “You think maintaining order is easy? You set us up to fail and now that the system is self-adjusting, you are putting the blame on me.”

Flynn fell silent for a moment and when he spoke his tone was not combative anymore.

“I didn’t set you up to fail,” he said. “Sometimes the real world is messy and imperfect, too.”

“This isn’t the ‘real world’, Flynn,” Clu replied. “And it’s not the world you created anymore, either.”

Flynn did not respond. The ISOs gathered on the sea shore; they were visibly distraught. Some of them fell on their knees, other were standing, glaring at the sea in silent horror. Radia rushed ahead and grabbed Flynn’s hands.

“What’s going to happen to our future brothers and sisters?” she demanded.

“I don’t know, Radia,” the User said. “But we’ll make this right somehow. I’ll find a way to make it right.”

“He still cares more about them,” Clu said, with only Tron close enough to hear him. He was so furious, he could have struck down the User then and there. “We are the only future left. And still he doesn’t care about the world he created.”

III.

The city was burning; the ISO towers collapsed under the relentless attack of the Recognizers. The tanks of the administration moved forward on the streets, crushing the barricades and the resisting programs. The ISOs were fleeing the city for the Outlands: the rocky desert appeared to be alive from the number of programs fleeing there. Most of them were walking, others drove various land vehicles and there were a few planes taking off from top of buildings towards the desert. The Recognizers abandoned the crushed remains of the once mighty white castles and cathedrals and they began chasing the aircrafts; none of those jets made it out from the city.

There were programs fighting on the streets: there were Basics fighting ISOs, troops battling against rebels and programs from various churches slaughtering each other. The bright white column of the portal was shining in the distance and when it fell apart, signaling the defeat of the User and his followers, the fight ceased. The resistance was crushed; the rebels were running for their lives and the troops were rounding them up fast. The prisoners were taken to be interrogated and released or repurposed afterwards.

The User was gone; Clu and his guards failed to capture him during the coup and Flynn fled for the Outlands. There were reports of the surviving ISOs marching around in the desert, living off of the scarce energy sources that could be found out there. The enemy appeared to be defeated and there was no sign of them ever emerging as a fearful opponent in the future. Even though the administration remained in place, there was a shift in power: the disappearance of the User created a vacuum and programs were losing the sense of purpose. Aside from having leadership, programs needed something more, something beyond visible. Flynn had been wrong when he had dismissed programs’ need for spiritual guidance, Clu realized – there had to be something else in addition to the authority of the administration.

The sound of the battle and dying programs was still loud when the third council was summoned. Their agenda this time was to unite the remaining churches into one; the unification of the church was for establishing peace within the city. The council was also to dismiss the principle of the infallible Users; from that point on the accepted tenet was that Users could make mistakes and that they could be wrong. This shift in the doctrine made all of Flynn’s followers the target of the Inquisition. Clu oversaw these proceedings; he chose to let the Inquisition gain power over having to see the emergence of street preachers and the subsequent clashes between their sects. More importantly, the church was going to provide programs in ways no secular government could have – and it was going to ease the tension within the city with its mere existence, with enforcing its own principles and breaking up resistance before it was even formed.

The Inquisition tried Flynn’s followers; some of them repented during the trials - the rest were condemned as heretics and sentenced to death. Those convicted could still escape the penalty by asking to be repurposed, but in the beginning right after the coup there were plenty of the unrepentant. The Inquisition turned the inauguration square into a place for executions and made a spectacle of the purge. Reports coming in after the executions began showed that support for the User evaporated and that the citizens became distrustful of other programs that failed to follow the teachings of the church. For the city this was the beginning of a long, peaceful period before the re-emergence of the ISOs and the beginning of the Crusades.

IV.

The halls of the tower were dark and quiet. The whisper of the crowd could be heard from outside, where an execution had just taken place. The terrible screaming of the condemned had filled the square for a long time, for the Inquisition made sure that these events were as horrifying and exemplary as they just could be. In the halls there were guards standing on the corners and they remained motionless when Clu walked past them. On the third floor he went to one of the cells and unlocked the door with a single touch.

The cell was small and unfurnished. There was a window on the wall, too narrow for a program to get through it, but it allowed the sounds of the street to penetrate the room. This cell was one of those reserved for programs waiting for execution; these rooms were constantly filled by the sounds coming from the old inauguration square downstairs. The screams of the dying programs drove the prisoners mad from fear; most of the condemned broke here, while listening to the sounds of that endless torment. If that happened and the prisoner repented, they were taken to be repurposed and their lives were spared.

There was only one prisoner kept in the cell, chained to the wall tightly with red light shackles. The system administrator did not see Tron since their duel during the coup, when the security program had helped the User to escape, ruining Clu’s plans. Tron was captured and put on trial by the Inquisition. Clu was told that it was the shortest trial ever for an unrelenting heretic that would not give up his fanatical beliefs in Users. The court handed down the death sentence swiftly and now the program was waiting to be taken out to be purged.

Tron was standing there, with his light blue circuits flickering dimly against the bright red chains. He was pale and he appeared to be weary from the capture and from having to listen to the sounds of the executions. Tron looked at Clu when the system administrator entered the cell, but the security program remained silent. This could have been the prisoner’s chance to repent and ask for mercy; Clu knew that it was not going to happen nevertheless. He had seen Tron’s disc after the coup when he examined it, looking for a hint about Flynn’s possible escape routes. He had seen the codes, the effort that had been put into bringing this program to life: Tron was never going to break, not by choice.

Clu stopped in the middle of the room. Tron was looking at him with expressionless face and Clu suddenly realized that he was going to stay silent. The program was not going to ask for being spared nor he would admit that Clu had been right from the beginning. This arrogance irritated Clu to no end. He stepped closer to the prisoner; Tron became visibly uncomfortable from his proximity and he turned his face away.

“What you want to be said about you when you’re gone?” Clu snarled in his ear. Tron remained motionless; he could not even turn his head back without touching Clu. The program’s eyes widened when Clu put his hand on his throat. The system administrator tapped the program’s coding and rendered him mute.

Clu walked to the door and called for the guards. He saw that Tron was looking at him with terrified expression on his face.

“He repented,” Clu told the guards when they arrived. “Bring him.”

Tron’s lips opened, but he could not scream. The guards rushed there and unlocked the chains. Clu walked out the cell with the guards and the struggling prisoner behind him.

2010

A Recognizer was hovering overhead and Clu’s jet was waiting on the ramp, ready to take off. A Recognizer over the Outlands had spotted Kevin Flynn in a land vehicle and now several units were on the way to intercept the User. On the way to his plane Clu looked down at the city. Under siege for centuries, it still stood; despite of the betrayal it was still strong. They were losing; when a program fell in a battle, it was gone forever – the ISO virus multiplied on its own at the same time. Now, with finding the User at last the city could get one last chance.

He was rushing, but he stopped on the ramp and turned to look at the launch pad. There were sentries boarding another jet and others were communicating with the land units that were also en route for the User. There was one program standing at the gate, unaffected by the general commotion. He was wearing black combat suit; his circuits were the same bright red as the other security programs’ on the deck. Tron must have come when the alert had been sent out to all units, but now he simply stood there, watching the guards leaving. When Clu had repurposed him, he had rewritten the security program’s coding, redirecting his loyalties from the Users to himself, taking Tron off the radar of the Inquisition. At the same time Clu had also forbidden Tron from crossing the city limits to rule out the possibility of the program being captured by the enemy and being returned to the User.

The crew of the jet was waiting for him, Clu realized. He looked at Tron for one last time. The program was watching him from the distance with unreadable face. Clu tore his eyes away from him, turned around and he boarded the plane.


	4. Baptism by Fire

I.

“Why are you in my apartment, Alan?” Sam Flynn asked. He was bent over his refrigerator in the living room of his trailer home. In the corner Marv, his tiny Boston Terrier just began to devour the grilled hamburger patty Sam had walked in with. Alan was standing at the terrace entrance and for a moment he found himself at the loss of words.

Lora and he had been working at the Arcade throughout the day. There was a board meeting in the evening in the ENCOM building, an event Alan could not have missed between normal circumstances. He did not forget the meeting and he got a reminder call an hour before; he decided not to attend nevertheless. They had gotten way too far with their research and experiments with Lora and yet another meeting with the greedy board members, their gloating over the profit ENCOM had generated during the past year was not important enough for Alan to take a break and leave the Arcade. They were going to release their new operating system, ENCOM OS-12 and Alan still remembered the conversation he had had with Richard Mackey, the current chairman of ENCOM a few days earlier.

“Given the prices we charge to students and schools, what sort of improvement have been made in ENCOM OS-12?” Alan asked Mackey. They were in Mackey’s lavish office; the stunning view of the city and the sunlit, blue bay beyond that reminded Alan of the day when he had stood at the window with Kevin Flynn after Flynn’s resignation. Of course he knew the answer to his own question and so did Mackey; yet Alan could not help but ask. There was not a single computer programmer at ENCOM unaware of the fact that apart from security features tailored to the cyber threats of the present day and some contemporary design, there had been no significant upgrade made to Flynn’s original product.

“This year we put a twelve on the box,” Mackey replied, grinning. He had no reason to hide his true agenda when he was alone with Alan Bradley. Now, being aware of Kevin Flynn’s fate Alan similarly had no motivation to attend the board meeting, even if he knew that he had just given more ammunition to the leadership of ENCOM to get rid of him.

“You missed the board meeting,” Sam Flynn said. The kid was standing there with two cans of beer in his hand. So much like his father, the younger Flynn liked to play games. Breaking into the ENCOM building during the board meeting, hacking into the servers and releasing their brand new product to the public for free was something Alan could have foreseen him doing, had Alan not been so over occupied with the discovery of the secret office under the Arcade. He found out about Sam’s prank when they closed down the office for the day with Lora and he turned on the television at home. The newscast showed Sam, the main shareholder of ENCOM, being arrested by the police after the kid had broken into ENCOM, put their new best-selling product online and then took a parachute jump from the roof to the street. Lora and he looked at each other. It was late in the evening, but they agreed that Alan would drive to Sam’s lakefront trailer home and reveal their findings to him.

“I was busy,” Alan replied. He was unsure where to start and he wanted to delay the moment of revelation, knowing that he would likely be bringing the news of Flynn’s demise to Sam. The kid threw one of the cans at him and Alan caught it. He put it down on the coffee table and he turned at the terrace. A train was crossing the bridge nearby and the loud noise of the horn cut into the night. The ENCOM building was towering on the other side of the river ominously.

“You know,” Alan said, “You got a pretty nice view here.”

Behind him Sam changed his shirt.

“I heard you did a triple axel off a roof a few hours ago,” Alan said and he turned around. There were black and blue bruises on the kid’ back from the parachute jump. “Rough landing, huh?”

“Could’ve been worse,” Sam mumbled. He looked at Alan. “You know, when I was twelve, I really appreciated the surrogate father thing. But come on, Alan. I got all under control now.”

“Oh. Clearly.”

“Why are you here?” Sam asked. After a last moment of mercy Alan replied.

“I was paged a few nights ago,” he said. He took out the pager from his pocket.

“Oh, man!” Sam exclaimed, laughing. “Still rocking the pager, eh? Good for you.”

“Yeah,” Alan said, looking at the device. “Your dad once told me I had to sleep with it and I still do. Page came from your dad’s office at the Arcade.”

Sam looked at him and his face slowly darkened. Alan gestured at the couch and they sat down.

II.

“Is he dead?” Sam asked. Alan just stopped speaking and the kid had been listening to him without interrupting, without any real sign of reaction.

“I can’t say it for sure, Sam, but we know that for a fact that your father designed his system in a way so that it would send out the page in the event of his passing,” Alan said. “And the page came.”

“But you are still not sure,” Sam objected. Alan understood him now; Sam was hopeful that his father was still alive.

“Something is there,” Alan said. “We don’t know what or who that is. Something did survive, though the computer does not recognize it as Flynn. But you are right, because our hope and belief that Flynn could be saved is why Lora and I are still working on this. It’s been four days now that we have been trying to secure a way to get a clear answer.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I wanted to come to you with a definitive answer. Indeed I hope I came earlier and you didn’t make that jump, but I am here now.”

“But you still don’t have the answer,” Sam said.

“That’s right. I will need your help to get it.” 

Sam looked at him expectantly.

“We decided not to attempt communication with programs in the system, because we have no way to verify anything they might be reporting. The same goes for the entity that survived Flynn’s reintegration. The laser is still operational. Flynn used it to get inside and outside the computer. Back in his days there was one entry point and then he had to travel to another location to exit. He called that place the Portal. Lora worked on the laser and upgraded it in ways that were not possible twenty years ago. Now the entry point is still the same, but you can be extracted from any given location.”

“And you know this because…?” Sam looked at Alan curiously. “You went in!”

“We have both gone,” Alan admitted. “Lora went first, actually. I would not let her, so she asked me, how did I expect her to let me use her own laser if I didn’t trust her to do the same? Lora was not going to let anybody attempt the transmission, had she not verified herself that it was safe. She was right, obviously, but it was still a hair-raising experience to watch her digitize herself. Lora pre-programmed the laser to bring her back a few seconds later and then she let me make a trip myself.”

“What does it look like?” Sam demanded. “What did you see?”

“Not much, actually. Remember, we only meant to see if it was possible to make it there and back. The laser takes you in a room, which is quite similar to the office under the Arcade. You can tell that you are in a different reality, but it is quite close. During the trip your physical body is in a suspended space, similar to the theory of quantum teleportation. But when you are in there, you still have the same appearance and physical sensation. You can see, walk around… you have the experience of breathing, even though your organs are data in a computer and there is no air around you, if this makes sense.”

Sam looked at him with eyes wide shut. Alan could tell that he was frustrated beyond words that he was not invited to try the laser already. Kevin Flynn would have become the same, Alan was thinking, had his intellect and adventurous nature been restrained the way Sam had been withheld and his life derailed, his path would have turned just as purposeless and unhappy as his son’s. Once again Alan felt regret for the younger Flynn; Sam should have grown up to be a golden boy and then go out and make a difference in the world. Instead he became a well-meaning but powerless heir of a fortune with an extensive police record and no deeper understanding of the real world.

“There is this dark room. It is empty, quiet. It appears to be located under a building, similar to the Arcade. From the outside you can hear cars passing by, people talking.”

“People!” Sam exclaimed.

“Yes. It seems to be true what we read in Flynn’s journal and programs have human appearance in there.”

Sam jumped on his feet, walked around and sat back on the couch. He seemed to be excited and upset at the same time.

“We will attempt to go in and try to locate the entity left behind after your father…,” Alan said. “If we can confirm that Flynn died, we can shut down the computer and you will have closure. If not…”

“Then my father is alive.”

“Sam… I wish for that, but don’t make up your hopes about this. The chances are very slim. Even if his digital self is alive, we don’t know if it is possible for a human body to survive after having spent twenty years in suspended space.”

“So can we check? Can I go?”

“Before we get to that… You need to know that there is a decision to be made on your end. We are not actually… supposed to do this. By the book, we should report this finding and then let the authorities handle it.”

“No,” Sam said. Alan nodded.

“Lora is confident that if we reveal the existence of the Arcade office, we will never hear about the computer again. It will be put into inventory and then get lost or they will realize how important it is, they try to experiment on it and then they pull it to pieces. Either way we will never have a shot to try and save Flynn. Lora works in D.C., she knows their ways.”

“No, don’t tell them. We should do this ourself. I want in.”

Alan nodded again.

“Lora and I were talking and we want two people to go in and one to monitor things from the outside. As I told you the laser can be programmed to bring back people, but it would be very risky if she and I went in without somebody to control the laser. When I made my test run, we experimented with me making distress calls and asking for Lora to bring me back. She saw my calls through the computer and she initiated the laser sequence to test how fast we can return from the system in case of emergency. It takes approximately one minute for the person that handles the laser to receive the call and another minute for the transmission to start. This is fairly safe, but again, we need somebody to oversee the experiment and monitor the situation.”

“Alan, you can’t do this to me,” Sam objected. “I’m going in. You can’t leave me behind to watch a monitor while Lora and you are in possible danger. And if anything goes wrong… It is Lora that built that laser; she is the best person to watch and intervene, to save us if things go downhill.”

“Sam… I was hoping that you will ask for this, because this is what we came to. Lora was prepared to come in with me, if you decided to stay back, but you are right, because she is the most qualified to monitor us and get us out fast if a situation arises. That said, you must know, that this experiment is dangerous. I don’t know what we will find there.”

“We’ll find out together,” Sam said confidently.

Alan stood up and Sam followed suit immediately.

“I’ll be ready in a minute,” he said. Alan chuckled.

“You’ve been just released from custody, haven’t you?” he asked. “We both had a very long day. Get some rest now. Let’s meet at the Arcade tomorrow at eleven in the morning.”

Sam reluctantly agreed; Alan went back to his car and drove home across the sleeping town.

III.

It was a cloudy, humid day. Lora and Alan arrived to the Arcade just after ten in the morning to prepare for the experiment. Alan went upstairs to let Sam in a few minutes after eleven. The kid must have taken Alan’s advice as he appeared to be rested. Sam was stunned to see the secret stairway and the office. Lora embraced Sam before she showed him around. 

“You will go after Alan, since he was in there already and he knows the place,” she told Sam. Out of the three of them she seemed to be the most anxious, having to stay back and oversee the trip from this side of the computer.

“I changed my mind,” she told Alan in the morning, after they woke up. “It’s not safe. We are not doing this.”

“Fine,” Alan replied. “What will happen then?”

Lora was thinking.

“The authorities will confiscate everything from the Arcade,” she said and then she fell silent. Alan knew very well what she was thinking; with revealing the existence of the secret office, they would lose all hope to save Kevin Flynn. Back in the days ENCOM shut down the Shiva laser project after a Pentagon inquiry about the possible use of the device in combat. Lora herself asked for the laser to be decommissioned after finding out that the army was interested to use it to teleport troops behind enemy lines. Revealing Flynn’s office would have been the equivalent of handing the laser to them. Lora shook her head slowly and then went to get dressed.

“Don’t forget,” she told Alan and Sam. “We know the location of the entity you will be looking for. You are going in to locate him, verify whether it is Flynn and then get out. You don’t need to interact with anybody else and the reason why you shouldn’t is that we don’t know the rules of this world. Some programs appear to regard Flynn as deity, while others mention him as false prophet. Since you don’t know the affiliations of certain programs, do not talk about being related to him in any form.”

Sam nodded, watching the computer in apparent awe.

“Should there be any issue, ask for extraction immediately,” Lora said. “Remember, I can see everything you guys do in there, and I will be able to read what you say. I can’t see what you think, I can’t tell if you feel you are in danger, but I can see if you ask for help. It takes approximately two minutes after the distress call for the transmission to finish, so you need to ask for extraction immediately when you feel you are in trouble. The time dilation comes from the fact that time passes quicker when you are in there. Don’t forget, I can take you out from any location, should it appear as a locked room or anything similar. Also remember, one extraction does not mean that we failed, we can go back and try again.”

“What if only one of us gets in trouble?” Sam asked.

“We discussed this and we decided that I bring out both of you, regardless of which one of you is making the call,” Lora replied. “It does not worth the risk, especially since we can go back as many times as we want.”

“What is the risk?” Sam asked. “Can we die?”

Alan noticed that the question made Lora anxious, and he took over the discussion.

“Don’t forget,” he said. “Your father programmed the computer to send a signal in the event of his death, and the page came. That said, we are going in for a few minutes only, in a place we do not possibly comprehend. The risk for us is rather to get stuck in a location and to be unable to proceed. If that happens, we ask for help.”

Sam nodded and Alan was relieved that he let the topic go without further frustrating Lora.

“Is that the only way to communicate?” the boy asked.

“Yes,” Alan said. “When I went in, I took a cell phone with me to see whether it was possible to digitize it. The phone was dark on the other side and it would not turn on when I got back. I took it to the repair shop and it turned out the battery had been fried. They replaced the battery and the phone turned on, but as for the experiment the answer is no, we have no other way to be in touch with Lora, when we are inside.”

“Be vigilant when you talk to anybody in there,” Lora said. “You will be dealing with AI. Highly possible that they can lie or mislead you if it serves their interest. Especially…”

Lora fell silent. Sam looked at her and he finished her sentence.

“Dad,” he said. “He can try to trick us.”

“Sam,” Alan said. “Once we find him… I don’t think that it will be hard to figure whether it is him. That said, worst case scenario is that Flynn is dead and another entity might try to convince us otherwise. But again, I believe that once we are inside, when we find him, it’s not going to be all that difficult to make the decision.”

Sam was nodding. He took out his keys and phone from his pocket and put everything on the table. He looked at Lora and Alan.

“I’m ready,” he said.

IV.

Alan opened his eyes. The office was dark and he was alone. He stepped aside to make room for Sam’s arrival and he looked at the small window. The same sounds of people and vehicles were coming in from the street which he had heard during his first visit. He took out a piece of paper from his pocket while he was waiting and he looked at it. Together with Lora they had prepared a map to the building where the entity they were looking for was usually present. Lora had assumed that a simple sheet of paper would make it through the laser just fine and she was right. On the map she highlighted a few buildings she thought to be significant looking enough for Alan to use them as point of reference.

Sam gasped. Alan looked up and he saw the kid appearing in the middle of the room. Sam was stunned for a moment, then he looked at Alan and he grinned. This was just another adventure for him, Alan realized, even if one of the more notable ones. He could just hope that their search would be successful and Sam could get a closure, so that he could move on from being the lost child he had become when his father drove away that night.

They went upstairs, where they found a building similar to the real-world Arcade – this place was also abandoned and completely empty. The front door was open and they walked out to the street. Much to Sam’s delight the sign over the entrance read ‘Flynn’s’. The street was dark with sidewalks and a roadway. The buildings around were all illuminated by pale blue light; all those constructs were so tall that Alan could not see their top. Above them a starless, dark sky hovered and all Alan could think of was that later he must come back together with Lora and show her around.

“Which way?” Sam asked. Alan looked at his paper and he pointed in the direction of the city center. They began walking. Just moments later a group of people appeared on the corner and walked towards them. They had human appearance and they were all wearing dark clothing with blue light strings on their garment. Alan began to suspect that the light strips on the surrounding buildings and on programs were not random decorations, but something which had to do with their individual energy and health level. The group of programs looked at them curiously as they walked past them. When the group was farther away Alan turned and he noticed that all of them were wearing a round disc on their backs.

Just a few seconds later a truck rolled down the street. By its design one could tell that it was a tactical vehicle; it had heavy armor and a machine gun mounted on the top. The truck stopped next to them and four programs jumped out from it. These programs looked different; they were wearing black armor, helmets and their circuitry was red. All of them carried a staff in their hands.

“These programs have no disc!” one of them announced. The back door of the vehicle opened and the programs pushed Alan and Sam towards the vehicle. They got in without fight; the back of the truck was empty except for a row of seats. The door was then locked from the outside, the four programs got in the front and they started.

“I think we got detained,” Sam said quietly. He was talking to Alan, but his words were meant for Lora to read.

“I agree. We look different from them. I say let’s play along for now, they might get us to our destination.”

They were watching the city from behind the window; it was spectacular with all its enormous buildings, lights and inhabitants. For the first time now Alan was thinking that they could not turn off the computer even if they found that Flynn was dead – how could they wipe out this civilization with the turn of a switch?

The truck crossed a gate, which closed behind them and the vehicle stopped at a large building. The door of the truck opened and a guard gestured at Alan and Sam. They got out from their seats. Another red program was standing outside.

“Identify yourself, program,” he told Sam.

“I’m not a program,” Sam replied. Right away he looked at Alan, who slowly nodded. They did not know the right answer to that question and Sam’s statement was as good as it could be. The program repeated the question.

“We are not programs,” Alan said. The red looked up at the sky and then he gestured at the other guards that escorted Alan and Sam in the building. They were taken into a large, round room, which was empty except for them and the guards. Soon other programs in long robes came in and some sort of procedure started. They had Alan and Sam repeat their statements and then they began to argue between each other. Alan heard them talking about the beacon not being lit, but soon he found himself simply sitting in wonder. There had been highlights in his career, but it was here, right now that he felt he reached the farthest point, in a lost digital empire, watching programs making a case in front of a court, arguing about dogmas which seemingly meant everything for them. They were so similar to real people that Alan was almost untouched about the fact that they were arguing about whether the two apostates should die for claiming not to be a program. Then and there Alan believed that it was the scientist in Flynn that had made him keep coming back to this world and to keep it in secret, the scientist and not necessarily the adventurer.

At the end of the short trial one of the dignitaries emerged and announced the death sentence for the two of them. Sam looked at Alan; the kid looked amused.

“Lora,” Alan said. “We are going to need an extraction now.”

The guards came back and escorted the two of them out from the room. They walked through the building, out to the street. A crowd was gathering there around a scaffold in the middle; the silence of morbid expectation filled the space. Alan looked at the scaffold and he was taken aback from the sight, from the fact that it was almost identical to what one would see on medieval illustrations of burning at the stake.

“Lora…” he whispered. He felt a pull and the square disappeared. In a blink of an eye he was back in the office under the real world Flynn’s Arcade. Lora was sitting at the computer with focused expression on her face.

“Lora, get Sam out fast,” Alan said. He was out of breath, as if he had been through heavy exercise – as if he had been about to be executed. The seconds passed slowly and he was about to panic, when the laser powered up again. Sam Flynn appeared in the downstairs office screaming, with his hands raised against the programs he had been struggling with just a moment before. Alan rushed to him and when he grabbed Sam’s shoulders, the kid went silent. Sam took a few shaky breaths and looked at Alan.

“We need to go back,” Sam said.


	5. Nebuchadnezzar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I am king no more, I am God.” - Verdi: Nabucco

I.

Quorra walked through the dark halls in silence. She stayed in the shadows; she was wearing a black cloak over her suit in order to conceal her own bright white circuitry. Long lines of tall columns stood on the two sides of the great hall. There were statues and other ornaments displayed in between each column – the fruits of a thousand cycles of cultural development on the Grid. Quorra could not help but stared when she had walked along this corridor for the first time and she had looked in awe with unabashed jealousy. No matter how the mighty city of Arjia thrived in the Outlands, the ISO settlement could never reach the size and power of Tron City, not with their limited resources. This time Quorra could not care less about the statues; she could only focus on her mission and she tried not to shake from the fear.

A group of clerics walked past. Quorra heard them coming a moment before they appeared and she stepped aside swiftly, hiding behind the base of a statue while they passed. She saw their tall head-gear and the yellow light of their circuits from where she was hiding; she could hear their monotone murmur. Quorra put her hand on the dagger hidden under her cloak inadvertently and the cold touch of the weapon reminded her that she needed to move. She looked around and she saw that the hall was empty. Quorra knew that there would be guards standing at the base of the stairwell that led to the upper floors; she was going to place a small device behind one of the statues to create distraction. While they would leave their post to investigate the matter, Quorra would make her way upstairs, where she hoped to find Flynn alone.

She walked. The dagger felt heavy; an unusual weapon on the Grid, one created by the ISO elders to dispatch the tyrant. Just a slight wound inflicted by this blade would kill anybody, Radia had told Quorra when the queen had handed the dagger to her in the reception room of the white tower. Quorra later pulled the blade out from the hilt slightly and she saw that it was glowing with intense, white light with the energy it was holding. She was expected to be able to approach Flynn without trouble; even if ISOs were not welcome in Tron City, Quorra’s association with the Creator was well known. She could have just walked to the guards at the staircase and ask for an audition – but Quorra had only one shot and she could not risk of being searched. One shot, unless Flynn actually knew about the plan of the ISOs, if he had heard them through the texture of the Grid, in which case she was walking into a trap.

Quorra cried out. She did not look away, yet she could not see the program coming; in one moment the hallway was empty and in the next one Tron was standing there in the middle, just a few steps ahead of her. Quorra was so frightened by the sudden appearance of the security program that she stopped and raised her hands in a defensive motion. Tron was standing there motionlessly with his circuits glowing pale blue and his opaque helmet activated. He began walking toward Quorra slowly, without making any noise. She was so terrified that she had to force herself not to turn around and attempt to run. She had been found out, she was certain about that and the simple fact that she was still alive left her confused.

Tron stepped forward, close enough for Quorra to hear the soft rumble of a machine he often emitted. He reached out at her with an expectant motion. He wanted the dagger, Quorra realized, looking at his gloved hand. She was going to die, Quorra was thinking: either Tron would kill her now or she would get apprehended, interrogated and executed. She reached for the dagger slowly to avoid posing as a threat for the security program. She was staring at the smooth, black visor, deliberating her options. She could not tell what Tron was thinking; this was the first time Quorra saw him with his helmet activated and his expression was hidden behind the mask. There was no way to guess his feelings, what his reasons might be to protect the Creator at this point. With nothing to lose she decided to try; Quorra made an attempt to make Tron let her pass and carry out her mission.

“I can save you,” she whispered, with her hand on the dagger. “Let me finish this.”

Tron took out his disc with a motion too fast for her to see. His rumbling strengthened and it became high-pitched, threatening as he raised his disc to strike. He was going to take the dagger from her willing hand or from the floor, from the pile of her scattered pixels, Quorra realized. She held out and surrendered the weapon with a defeated bow. Tron took the dagger and turned away. He put his disc away and appeared to be leaving. Quorra, shocked by the fact that he spared her life, took a hesitant step backwards. Tron looked at her and he motioned at her to leave; and then he was gone from the hallway.

She walked out from the building, stumbling. She did not care about being discovered anymore, but nobody stopped her on the way out. Quorra was falling apart; not because she had failed to carry out the mission Radia had entrusted her with, not for she would have to return to Arjia City to report her failure and not because now there was no way left to stop the war that would likely mean the end of the ISO nation. She was overwhelmed by the events that had taken place since the reintegration and by the regret for ever accepting the assignment to assassinate Kevin Flynn.

Quorra exited the gate and she walked down the street. Other programs paid little attention to her: she did not look any different from them in her cape. She thought she would make it to the main road to get her buggy and leave the city, but she felt her legs giving up on her; Quorra walked in an empty, dark alleyway, fell on her knees and she began sobbing.

II.

“Flynn!” she cried out. They were in the middle of the wasteland, after the explosion had eradicated the valley. Quorra was kneeling on the edge of the shallow crater with her arm extended at the survivor. Quorra was overwhelmed; despite of her wildest hopes she could not hope that the Creator survived the reintegration after experiencing the massive blast. But it was him at the bottom of that hole, or so she believed until he emerged and Quorra could see his face. It was Kevin Flynn – and something else. He looked like Flynn had used to be many cycles before, after he had allowed his code to deteriorate and for his physical appearance to visibly change as he had aged. Now he looked younger, which made him similar to Clu and Quorra screamed out of terror, because she thought it was Clu that survived the reintegration. She could not let his hands go nevertheless and she helped him climb out to the surface. There he let go of her and Quorra scrambled backwards, shaking from the fear.

Flynn sat down on the edge of the crater. He was silent and he appeared to be disoriented. The circuitry on his black cloak was glowing with its usual pale blue light, but his face… It was the face of a somewhat younger Kevin Flynn and Quorra could not stop thinking that he looked like as if Clu and the Creator had physically merged together. The reintegration happened, but contrary to Flynn’s expectation it did not kill him – the process reunited them, User and program into something… different.

They sat in silence. Flynn was staring in front of himself motionlessly, apart from a light twitch here and there. He was not very distinct from the man Quorra knew; she had seen him a hundred times before during his silent meditations. She should have been bursting with happiness – Flynn lived and Clu was gone -, but she just sat there across the crater, waiting for him to speak.

Distant lights appeared in the sky. Planes and Recognizers were coming from the direction of Tron City; their red glow was approaching rapidly.

“Flynn,” she said instinctively. For so many cycles those lights meant danger; but this time Flynn looked up at the aircrafts and he remained silent. The first Recognizer to arrive made a circle above and then it landed in the valley. Quorra was watching them quietly. Their appearance meant certain death for her; she could not move nevertheless. Flynn sat there in an apparent daze as if he was trying to figure out something and Quorra could not abandon him, even if it led to be captured by the Reds. The guards reached them and they formed a circle around the crater. None of them attempted to approach Flynn and Quorra. She could not tell if they were waiting for more backup to arrive or if they could not evaluate what they were facing and their response was pending.

Flynn moved. He stood up and Quorra followed suit. She could not even guess what was going to happen; she had no way of knowing who she was standing next to. Flynn walked to the platoon leader and the Red saluted immediately. The guards opened their circle and Flynn began walking to the closest grounded plane unobstructed. Quorra stood shocked; she could only think that the guards recognized the Creator as Clu. Nobody appeared to pay her any attention and the Reds started to leave. Quorra ran after Flynn and she caught up with him as he was boarding the plane.

“Flynn!” she cried out in confusion. He turned back at her and he raised his hand invitingly. She ran up on the ramp and joined Flynn, encouraged by the gesture. The aircraft lifted off and it began its flight back to the city. They sat in silence and Quorra noticed that the Reds around them were making careful glances at Flynn. They were not sure about him either, she realized; they might have identified him as Clu, but they could not be certain. Flynn was staring in front of himself and then he gradually relaxed. He began to look around and pay attention to his surroundings.

The ship landed on a wide platform in the heart of Tron City. Quorra forgot about her fears for a moment when they disembarked and she saw the city from the top for the first time in a thousand cycles. Red programs filled the landing spot; the news they had received from the incident made them gather here to see Flynn’s arrival. They stood around the aircraft in humble silence. Kevin Flynn turned around the looked at them – and in that moment Quorra was certain that she was seeing her old friend and the benevolent creator of the system. These programs, they surely would not have come to watch Clu’s return, such a frequent event with this attention and wonder. Then she saw a program that stood apart from the crowd. Tron! Quorra turned in his direction inadvertently. She had not seen him ever since the coup. Tron had not changed much; his once pale blue circuitry was now pulsing with a bright, red light against his black suit, but his face was the same – firm, hard to read. Next to her Kevin Flynn turned toward Tron as well; he must have noticed the program himself. Quorra thought that Tron would approach them, that he would come to meet Flynn, who was now looking at the program expectantly. Tron’s face suddenly hardened; the program turned around and he left the platform.

Quorra looked at Flynn and she saw the first expression on his face since the reintegration: disappointment. He turned at the crowd and with one hand he reached out at a program that stood close to him. The unsuspecting program’s circuitry began to glow with high intensity. Others in the crowd cried out and so did Quorra when she understood what was happening. The program’s circuits were shining with the brightest red light for a few moments and then he fell to pixels. Screams of fear and terror came from everywhere. Quorra was staring at Flynn with her hands pressed against her own lips. Flynn looked around and the people fell silent. And Kevin Flynn smiled.

“Greetings, programs,” he said.

III.

She was walking. Quorra walked through familiar streets she had dreamed of so many times throughout the cycles in exile; she tried to recall the purpose and fulfillment she had once felt there. But she found none and after a while she came to realize that the lost happiness was the warmth of home, which was gone forever. The friends she had known were long dead; tanks were patrolling the streets and programs walked by fast with their eyes downcast. The Inquisition tracked down people for not falling in line and Quorra collapsed from the dread when she first saw a program being purged at the inauguration square.

Despite of her reservations she ran to Flynn in an attempt to convince him to change the ways of the administration. Quorra had not seen him after his return to the city; he withdrew in a suite in the central tower and he could not be bothered to get involved. Quorra was fearful when she first entered his lair; she had not met him since the events on the landing platform. She heard that Flynn killed many programs for the smallest offenses or for no reason at all; he did not even have to be in the same room with a program to derezz them. His powers had grown exponentially since his return to the city; aside from being able to kill programs from the distance he seemed to be connected to the very energy of the system, to create and destroy buildings without actually stepping out of his tower. There was no rhyme or reason in his actions, nothing Quorra could understand and she was unable to confirm whether he was indeed Kevin Flynn. Other programs, when they spoke to her fearfully, would tell that they appreciated his power, but they would never say whether they recognized him as Kevin Flynn.

“Please,” Quorra would tell him. They were in his room, which occupied the whole top floor of the building. He was sitting on the floor as if he was deep in meditation, but something was wrong. Contrary to the tidiness of his safehouse, this room was a mess, with items and debris lying everywhere. The whole place was full of unleashed energy; Quorra felt as if the floor was melting under her feet. She saw some scenes playing out in front of her and she heard some distant voices. It was a like a hallucination, before she realized that she was picking up Flynn’s powers. He was seeing and hearing things from all over the city and even from the Outlands, things he had no business knowing about. “Please. They are executing innocents on the street. You can stop this. You have to stop it.”

He did not look at her; he was looking at something behind her or at something she could not even see. So many times Quorra had envisioned what their lives could be upon coming back to the city and how prosperity would return – but now that they were here, she was watching a nightmare unfolding without being able to change anything. She could not bear to look at him anymore, so she started. On the way out from the room Quorra noticed something and she stopped.

Tron was lying there on the floor at the base of the wall motionlessly. She had not seen him when she had entered the room, because he was still and his blue circuit light was so faint that she could barely see it. He was lying there as if somebody had thrown him against the wall; his face was pale and weary and his eyes were closed. But what shook Quorra was the fact that his circuits were now blue, indicating that Kevin Flynn had restored him at one point… Or did he? Quorra started at Tron, but a soundless command, which hit her like a punch in her face, stopped her. She turned around slowly. Kevin Flynn was still sitting on the floor, facing the window; but the command could only come from him. That meant that he could read her mind and send her instructions without lifting a finger. Quorra knew that he had had no such capabilities before the reintegration. She looked around in the room and she took in the sight of the destruction with a fresh eye. This was not the room of a ruler, she realized; it was the lair of a madman.

She left the room in a hurry. She ran downstairs, out from the tower, away from the city. She got a buggy that could handle the different terrain of the Outlands and she began the long trip to Bostrum Colony.

IV.

The ISO elders were sitting around the room in a circle. Quorra was standing in the middle in silence, exhausted. The ISOs were aware of the Creator’s new ability to listen to them from the distance even before her arrival and they made their precautions prior to debriefing her. They created a dome of energy above Arjia City, fueled by their own individual powers, to hide themselves from Flynn’s eyes and ears.

Quorra told them everything she had seen and when she finished, long, contemplating silence descended on the room. Quorra was waiting. After her return to Bostrum she could not find her place and she traveled to Arjia to request an audience with the elders. Now they all sat quietly without looking at each other, but Quorra knew that they were discussing the news in their own secret way. After a while Radia stood up and she gestured at Quorra. She followed Radia upstairs to the top of the white tower. Once there, Quorra looked down at the city the same manner she had watched Tron City not long before. She felt tired; all she wanted was to return to Bostrum and rest, to close her eyes for a while before the fight would begin.

Radia stood tall in her white gown and headdress. For a moment she looked at Quorra with unusual softness in her eyes.

“You are safe from him,” she said. “Flynn can not see you here and we are going to hide you from his eyes from now on.”

Suspiciously, Quorra turned. Radia was going to entrust her with a mission, she realized. Radia raised her hand and pointed at the Outlands. Quorra stared into the black desert. After a while she began to see the lights in the far distance. It was the tribe of nomads, marching toward Tron City. There were thousands of them; Quorra could not tell their exact number, but that army could have taken down Bostrum and Arjia City in an instant. She saw giant war machines rolling across the desert, surrounded by the sea of chanting nomads.

“Go back to him,” Radia said. “The crusaders know that the attack is coming, but they don’t know the time. We have infiltrated the tribes and we know their plans.”

“Flynn can see everything that’s happening on the Grid,” Quorra opposed. “He does not need a warning.”

“No, he does not. You will still go and warn him.”

“For I am the only ISO that can get in the city freely,” Quorra said after short consideration. “You want me to remain Flynn’s confidant for the future.”

“Quorra,” Radia said softly, and her voice was similar to the undulating sound of the sea she had once emerged from. “Arjia can not stand without resources from Tron City. You need to warn Flynn about the coming attack, because if those ISOs win and they take over the city, we will never be able to access the energy sources there. If the crusaders defend the city with success, we have to establish a relationship with them… with Flynn, because we can not march against Tron City once more with him being back as their leader.”

“Because if they are capable of beating the tribes, they will beat us too,” Quorra said. “You will not be able to raid Tron City anymore for energy and Arjia has more residents than what the place can support on its own.”

Radia smiled at Quorra, but her eyes were cold.

“There will be no safe place for an ISO,” she said, “should we lose access to Tron City.”

Quorra nodded slowly. Of course she understood the warning; that the first place the starving Arjians would attack for resources would be Bostrum Colony.

She returned to Tron City. She requested an audience and was admitted to Flynn’s residence right away. The large room was in ruins, full of pixelated debris; much to Quorra’s relief Flynn was alone and there was no sign of Tron. The crusaders were the enemy of the ISOs, but Tron had used to be the protector of her nation before the war and seeing the program being the subject of undeserved cruelty gave Quorra great distress.

“It’s time,” she said. “The tribes are going to attack.”

Kevin Flynn was sitting there without looking at Quorra. It would have been easier to see him dead, she was thinking, than to watch him losing himself. Quorra waited. After long silence he lifted his face and looked at her. His hand moved and he opened up an interface between the two of them. Quorra knelt down and looked at the codes. It was a miniature picture of a segment of the Outlands. The marching renegade ISOs were blinking, tiny dots in the picture.

She looked at Flynn. His face was blank, disinterested. He, who wanted to give up his life for his creatures and in a way he had actually done so, was watching the invaders that were approaching with battle song on their lips indifferently. Or was he really indifferent? His hand moved above the interface: the dots that represented the ISO tribes flared up and the interface disappeared.

Quorra jumped on her feet.

“What…?” she uttered. “Did you…?”

She turned at the large window. Great brightness rose above the desert, similar to what Quorra imagined the sun to look like in the User world. The shockwave of the explosion reached Tron City and then the light above the Outlands went out.

Quorra stood there in shock. She felt tears streaming down her face; she had seen programs dying before, but never like this, being wiped out by the hand of a programmer… by the hand of god. The renegade ISOs, these wild, cruel zealots that everybody on the Grid feared, were gone.

“Go back to your people,” Flynn said. She just noticed that he was standing next to her. “Tell them that this is what is going to happen to any program that tries to take on my city.”

V.

Quorra wiped off her tears and she stood up in the alley. She was now ready to return to Arjia City; the faster she reported her failure and that she had lost the dagger, the faster the ISO elders could make their plans for the future.

After the eradication of the tribes she went back to the white tower to deliver the Creator’s message. The ISOs had known about the fate of the zealots, having seen the explosion that killed them all from the distance. They understood that they were not going to be able to attack Tron City for energy ever again, for a single campaign would have led to the end of the ISO nation. This development was not going to cause an imminent danger for Arjia; there were no shortages yet and their first action after the annihilation of the renegades was to send Arjian settlers to their now abandoned villages. This temporarily reduced the population of the city, delaying the disaster.

When the call came from the white tower, Quorra was ready. She could still remember Radia’s threat against the Bostrum Colony and for that she followed the ISO messenger without objections. She knew that the ISO elders were going to send her to assassinate Kevin Flynn before they presented the dagger to her. There was no other way, Radia would say: without sufficient resources the ISOs would starve and would soon start dying. Quorra did not ask anything; she knew that the mission would mean almost certain death for her, but refusing it would have meant having to watch Bostrum Colony being overrun by the starving Arjians and being slaughtered along with her friends in the near future. She took the dagger and she went to Tron City to kill the Creator: her success would have sent the city into chaos and make the endless crusades to resume – but for the ISOs the other choice was slow, inevitable death. In the city Quorra was interrupted by Tron, who confiscated the dagger, but let her go for reasons she could not fathom.

She walked out to the street in the direction of the spot where she had left the buggy. She saw people rushing toward the inauguration square; she had not even realized how close they were to that dark place. Tired to the core, Quorra went with the crowd, letting the morbid curiosity getting the better of her. When they got to the square she saw that they were gathering to oversee an execution. The sight of the stake made her sick and she began to leave.

Somebody yelled and Quorra looked back. She saw the two condemned programs being led out from the administration building and she stopped.

“What did they do?” Quorra asked from the programs that were standing around her.

“They claimed to be Users,” somebody replied. The beacon, of course, was unlit for the past thousand cycles and such claim would carry an instant death penalty under the Inquisition. Quorra was watching the two programs as they stood in the circle of guards. They showed no fear; they were looking around with cheerful curiosity on their faces. They had no discs or energy lines on their outfits, but this was not the reason why Quorra could not take her eyes off of them.

One of the condemned, he reminded Quorra of somebody. The way he was standing there, with calm expression as if he was not facing a torturous death: that program reminded her of Tron. Quorra blinked. She had seen Kevin Flynn growing old and she knew the difference between the young and aged look of a User. Tron was a program and he had not aged, but Quorra could tell that had he done so, he would have looked like that program there. That program… he was not a program. He was Alan Bradley, Tron’s User. In the very moment when Quorra realized this, Alan disappeared from the Grid.

The crowd rumbled. Cries of surprise and disbelief came from everywhere. The other condemned stood there with a phlegmatic smile on his face. The guards grabbed him and they began to drag him to the stake.

Quorra screamed. She started to fight her way toward them.

“Stop!” she was screaming. “He is a User!”

Nobody paid attention to her and her voice was suppressed by the sound of the crowd. In the hands of guards the User began to panic and he started to fight. Quorra was trying her hardest to get close to him. She was almost certain that the Users had found a way to enter the Grid without revealing their presence without the Portal being lit. The disappearance of Tron’s User made her believe that he had been rescued and Quorra expected the other User to be gone in any moment as well. She could not keep her eye off of him; who could he be?

“Sam!” she shouted. She could not tell if the User was really Kevin Flynn’s son, but she decided to try anyway. “Sam Flynn!”

The User stopped screaming and he looked down at her with a stunned expression on his face. In the next moment he disappeared from the hands of the Reds and the crowd erupted in a surprised roar.


End file.
